Thankless in Death (In Death 37)

He smiled as he studied his next pick. Oh yeah, that would be good. That would be fun—and he knew just how to pick up the bucks for his profit on that one.

“Asshole, where’s my pizza! And bring me a damn beer.”

He took a few more minutes to go over his plan. Jesus, it was really so simple. Why hadn’t he ever thought of doing all this before?

The droid brought pizza and beer on a tray, with a napkin.

Not bad.

“Go on out there, active rest. I want you around if I need you.”

“Yes, sir. Enjoy your pizza.”

“Bet your ass.”

He switched the screen to entertainment, scrolled through his choices, settled on porn.

He amused himself with pizza, beer, and violent sex until he dropped contentedly off to sleep.

17

SHE WOKE EARLY AND ALONE. IN THE MURKY light before dawn she felt the alone even before her eyes adjusted.

Roarke was up and … somewhere already, she thought. She’d have wondered how he managed to rise, even shine so damn early, but even as she lay there she knew she’d finished with sleep herself.

Her mind had already circled to Reinhold.

Even as she sat up she cued into the snoring, a sound even kindness and affection couldn’t term a purr. She made out the heap of fur and limbs that was Galahad at the foot of the bed.

At least somebody knew how to sleep until actual morning, she thought, and shoved out of bed.

She’d grab a workout and a quick swim, she decided. Tune everything up since she had the time. She hunted up ancient sweat shorts, a support tank, tossed an NYPSD T-shirt over it.

The cat never stirred, the snoring never ceased while she pulled on shoes, then slipped into the elevator.

A hard thirty-minute run, she calculated, maybe fifteen on weights, ending with fifty laps in the pool.

She stepped out in the pool area with its lush plants, exotic flowers, deep blue water. Of all the luxuries, the indulgences spread through the home that Roarke built, she considered the pool her biggest personal perk.

Tempting, she mused, to just strip off and dive in, but more satisfying to work up a sweat first.

And circling around toward the gym, she saw the light glowing.

She paused before she entered, and heard Roarke’s voice, then someone else’s.

Easing around the corner, she saw him—in workout gear nearly as ragged as hers—steadily bench-pressing while he carried on a conversation. He had the comm on speaker, she realized as the voice—male, high-toned Brit—rattled off a lot of equations and buzzwords she didn’t completely, hell, didn’t remotely, understand.

While Roarke lifted, tossed out questions and comments about fire codes, something to do with egress, some sort of three-dimensional blueprint flashed on a wall screen, shifted, revolved, zoomed in, went from side to bird’s-eye views.

It looked, even to her untrained eye, big and important.

She slipped in, got an easy smile from Roarke, and angled over

to program one of the machines for her morning run.

The beach, she decided, programming manually while Roarke’s conversation continued. Tropical sunrise.

She liked the feel of sand under her feet, and the rosy light blooming on the eastern horizon, the sight and sound of waves kissing the shore then rolling coyly away again.